New study shows perceptions not reality for small to mid-sized businesses considering, then adopting, cloud services

Businesses considering the move of one or more applications to a cloud service, the purchase of a cloud service for their organization, or the development of a service on a cloud platform solution, often want answers to a lot of questions. Many of them boil down to whether they can trust the cloud and their cloud vendor to protect their data, to keep their and their customers’ information private and to deliver a dependable service.

Recently we commissioned a study of companies with 499 PCs or less in France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S. which looked at the security, reliability and privacy perceptions and realities of cloud services. We spoke to equal numbers of companies that both use the cloud and do not use the cloud. There was no mention of Microsoft being behind the research and no company, product or service names were discussed.

The results were very interesting! Companies that do not use the cloud have some serious concerns when it comes to security, privacy and reliability. In itself that’s perhaps not too surprising – plenty has been written about these “barriers” to adoption. What’s surprising is that the perceptions holding back companies from the cloud are in stark contrast to the realities (and benefits) experienced by similar companies that use cloud services.

We’ll be releasing the study throughout next week. In the meantime we filmed a short video preview. You can also check out the Microsoft News Center security news room, which is where we’ll be posting details once the study is live. You’ll also find details of a similar study we conducted a year ago with companies in Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Singapore and the U.S.

About the Author

General Manager, Trustworthy Computing

Adrienne Hall is a General Manager in the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing group, where she leads a team of information technology (IT) professionals who are focused on the security, privacy, reliability, and accessibility of devices and services built on Microsoft technology. Read more &raquo